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Brown: Good story is way to get buy-in, not numbering

First issues of a comic series used to be special. They’re now so common, they’re pretty much worthless.

The mainstream comics companies, mainly DC and Marvel, continue to flood the market with first issues, but they’re not fooling everyone.

DC even went so far as to relaunch its entire universe, the so-called New 52 project. Every title was taken back to the beginning, so a whole rash of new No. 1s were launched in 2011.

The thinking goes something like this: The No. 1 issue of any series sells like hotcakes, especially to collectors, so release as many first issues as possible, and you’ll see a bump in sales.

In the old days, comic books would reach 100, 200, 300 or more issues. If a series had been going since the 1960s, arguably the most creative era in Marvel’s history, then it would have reached its several hundredth edition. New creative teams would come and go, but the numbering would keep going up.

Nowadays, Marvel simply takes a series back to issue No. 1 whenever the artist and writer change or a storyline has run its course.

The flaw in this model is that a No. 1 is really only valuable if a series becomes long-running. I couldn’t tell you how many different versions of, say, Avengers No. 1 exist. All I know is, the only comic that’s really worth something is the one that started it all.

After DC launched the New 52, Marvel responded with its Marvel Now initiative. And every time this happens, the companies say the same thing: We’re kick-starting our universe so non-fans have a jumping-on point that doesn’t require any knowledge of superhero history.

But a funny thing happened with the New 52: It actually made DC continuity harder to track, since there is now a new continuity, as well as an old version of the same characters.

As I’ve said before, there are no fans anymore. Fans don’t care if a series is relaunched. They just want a good story. There are only completists, who must have every issue of a series, including all the No. 1s that come down the pipeline.